‘Liquid reality’: rethinking perception with OFFSCREEN’s immersive art experience, supported by Lombard Odier

Now in its fourth year, Lombard Odier renews its partnership with OFFSCREEN, the immersive art fair held during Paris Art Week. We are proud to have accompanied Julien Frydman, OFFSCREEN’s co-founder and artistic director, since the creation of the event in 2022. Dedicated to expanding the dialogue between still and moving images, OFFSCREEN explores how they flow between reality and illusion. This collaboration reflects a shared commitment to curiosity, transformation, and the art of seeing the world differently – reminding us how art, architecture and dialogue can inspire new ways to rethink everything.

Read also: OFFSCREEN: the study and dialogue between artists working with image in all its forms

Liquid realities: where art and technology merge

This year, OFFSCREEN pays tribute to Shigeko Kubota (1937–2015), a pioneering figure of video art whose work continues to ripple across generations of artists. A leading voice within the international Fluxus movement, Kubota brought a deeply personal touch to her vast body of video sculptures and multimedia installations, creating a lyrical meeting of the intimate and the technological.

Her works blends electronic experimentation with nods to Japanese spiritual traditions, natural forms, and art history, while chronicling fragments of her own life. In her work River (1979–1981) – presented this year at OFFSCREEN – she wrote: “A drop of rain becomes a stream, a stream becomes a river. The role of water in nature is comparable to the function of video in our lives.”

River – Shigeko Kubota – OFFSCREEN 2025

This metaphor captures her notion of ‘liquid reality’, a space where form, place, and time dissolve and interconnect. Across her practice, our perception of the world becomes equally fluid, shifting between the physical and the virtual, between what we know and what we imagine.

Kubota’s works are held in prestigious collections including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Guggenheim Museum in New York, and have been exhibited in major international institutions such as the Venice Biennale. At OFFSCREEN 2025, this tribute invites visitors to engage with her vision – one that continues to dissolve boundaries and transform the way we see.

The Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpêtrière: a dialogue of light and memory

This year’s edition takes place in the majestic Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpêtrière, whose architecture and charged history shape the viewer’s experience. Its architecture and charged history offer a striking counterpoint to the contemporary works it hosts.

As light filters through the chapel’s dome and across the installations, it transforms perception itself. The space becomes a living organism – echoing Kubota’s fascination with reflection, movement, and transformation.

“This new edition of OFFSCREEN draws us into a dialogue between the artworks and an exceptional, history-laden venue – through a reimagined scenography and an immersive experience,” notes Édouard de Saint Pierre, Managing Director France at Lombard Odier.

Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpêtrière – OFFSCREEN 2025

With its four main aisles and four chapels, each piece can exist independently while also allowing a natural flow between the different presentations, where art and architecture merge into a single immersive narrative. In this setting, visitors explore the interplay between the sacred and the experimental, between permanence and fluidity – and to experience art in a way that subtly challenges how we see and engage with the world.

This new edition of OFFSCREEN draws us into a dialogue between the artworks and an exceptional, history-laden venue – through a reimagined scenography and an immersive experience

Seeing with emotion: artists who transform the familiar

This year’s new “Acquisitions et Découvertes” (acquisitions and discovery) programme and the rare display of historical photographs from Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot’s sessions at the nearby hospital historically associated with the chapel, underline how images shape our collective understanding of body, identity, and consciousness.

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Charcot, a pioneering neurologist of the 19th century, studied patients with neurological and psychiatric conditions, among them what was then termed hysteria. The photographic plates from 1893 document these sessions with unprecedented precision, capturing ephemeral physical symptoms while also reflecting the period’s scientific and aesthetic gaze. This same chapel was historically linked to these medical observations and even to Charcot’s funeral, lending the space a layered resonance of memory and inquiry.

By presenting both contemporary works and these archival images, OFFSCREEN invites visitors to reconsider how we interpret reality.

Just as artists reveal hidden dimensions by shifting how we see, at Lombard Odier we believe that progress depends on the courage to question what feels certain

The art of transformation

Just as artists reveal hidden dimensions by shifting how we see, at Lombard Odier we believe that progress depends on the courage to question what feels certain.

Transformation – whether in art, science, or finance – begins with perspective. It invites us to look again, to see connections where others see separation, and to find meaning in complexity.

By supporting OFFSCREEN, we celebrate not only contemporary creation but also the enduring value of curiosity – the ability to observe, interpret, and rethink the world around us.